Friday, February 22, 2008

Android is the most modern application platform

Exceptionally, in this blog entry I intend to talk about philosophy instead of hard software code. There are so many mobile application platforms and some of them like Symbian is pretty widespread. So why the excitement about one more platform which is in addition Java-based - there are a number of Java-based mobile platform starting with J2ME, OSGi R4, Limo and so on. Everybody has one's own answer and I think the Android Developer Challenge is a great factor. However, one paper I wrote about 2 years ago (shameless self-advertisement ...) comes to my mind constantly when I work with Android. In that paper I analyzed mobile middleware patterns (get the presentation for free, the paper unfortunately costs money. Write an e-mail to me and I send you a copy). There are 4 major patterns in mobile middleware (quote from the introduction of the paper).

Context-awareness

Traditional middleware is strictly layered meaning that it shields the applications from events concerning the lower level of the stack. For example if a remote invocation cannot be sent, the middleware layer may retry and eventually send a general error to the service user. Context-awareness means that there is no such shielding and the application is aware of the environment situation. Context changes are inherently asynchronous and are often delivered in the form of events. It is important to note that only the application can decide what context events are important and how to handle them. For example when a business application notices that its cheap and fast proximity connection is no longer available, the application can revert using slower and more expensive cellular connection. The same option may not be available for a game which is not allowed to use more costly bearer and in case of disconnection, an error should be sent to the end user or the application may switch to standalone mode.

Reflection

Reflection generally means that the program is able to make computations on its own structure during its execution (retrieve the current structure, evaluate the structure against environmental constraints then update the structure if necessary). Reflection is a crucial technique in mobile computing, especially, if the application is expected to be context-aware. Even moderate number of context states yield large number of context state combinations. If the application and the middleware are built in monolithic fashion, the application and middleware code must be prepared for all possible context state combinations which quickly becomes intractable. Also, the memory footprint of the monolithic middleware increases with each context state combination handled. In order to keep the footprint minimal and the design of the system clear, the middleware needs to be decomposed into a collection of smaller components. The application chooses just the components it needs and composes the middleware that serves the application the best. In case of context changes, the application evaluates the context transition and possibly changes the instantiated components and/or their configuration.

Off-line access

Disconnection is an inherent property of mobile computing. The reason for disconnection can be physical (no coverage) or social (mobile access is too expensive or not acceptable in the given situation). In order to provide acceptable user experience, operation in disconnected mode must be available. The key technology to achieve disconnected operation is the relocation of relevant data and code to the mobile device. Data relocation can be achieved by pretty established data synchronization techniques.

Asynchronous communication

Networked computing is dominated by solutions following Remote Procedure Call (RPC) semantics. RPC mimics the procedure call on a single processor, the calling procedure is suspended for the duration of the call and execution continues in the called procedure. Therefore RPC is inherently synchronous. Mobile transport networks are characterized by long and variable delays and frequent transmission errors. In this environment communication must be asynchronous ( event-based or messagebased terms are also used for the same concept). This affects the communication semantics the middleware uses. Instead of procedure call semantics, communicationrelated events are delivered to the application.

The paper goes on and designs such a framework for OSGi but that's history. So you can imagine my surprise when I started to work with Android and saw the intent and the related service framework that realizes context-awareness and reflection. The decomposition of the Android application into intent handler activities implement one key element of the reflective vision - standalone components that can be reconnected as the environmental situation demands it - and the intent delivery framework is perfectly suitable for context-aware computing. The intent matching logic in the current Android implementation is pretty simple (exact match of action and categories) but it takes not much imagination to extend it with more sophisticated matching logic if the target platform's capabilities (e.g. power consumption, processor speed) allow it. Intent delivery is slow but service binding based on intent matching - so that the service is selected by an intent and then the selected service is called repeatedly - is sufficiently fast.

Android is not just another Java-based mobile platform but actually the only platform that adopts the results of the mobile middleware research therefore it is interesting in itself, without the Android Developer Challenge and its prizes. Its fate depends mostly on business factors but it is still important to note that the Android platform's architecture is several steps ahead of the competing platforms.

About the blog

This blog is a personal diary about my adventures with the Google Android platform. I write it in the hope that others may find my experiences useful but please, beware. The blog is created as I gain experience about the platform myself so errors, omissions, etc. may be found in the entries.